Battered but unbowed

Wayne Wahrsager's New York Merchants Protective Co. Inc.—an alarm company in existence for more than 100 years—is no more as the result of a $20 million breach-of contract lawsuit filed against the company and Wahrsager last year by Bank of America.

But Wahrsager tells me he is still very much a player in the security industry—and planning to launch a new alarm company in October with $50 million in funding behind it.

“You just brush yourself off and start all over,” he told me this week.

It seems that what Wahrsager experienced over the past year and half would have had most people down for the count.

First, in January 2011, came the Bank of America lawsuit contending it was owed more than $19.2 million for the default of a loan.

Then, four months later, Wahrsager got fired from his job as president of NYMP and pretty much literally got thrown out of the company's Freeport, N.Y.-based office by the receiver a judge appointed to run the company. The receiver changed the locks at the office to keep Wahrsager out but he just took his office door off its hinges and continued coming to work until a judge ordered him gone that May.

Then, last October, the judge approved the sale of NYMP's assets to pay off creditors. The sale to Professional Security Technologies of New Jersey was completed earlier this year, Wahrsager told me.

He'd been involved NYMP since 1988, but the previous owners were cousins so it was a family business that turned 100 years old in 2010, he said.

Wahrsager contends that the company went for far less than it was worth, and that if Bank of America had been willing to work with him, he would have repaid the loan “100 cents on the dollar.” He said he's still a named defendant in the lawsuit, which is still pending.

But Wahrsager said he's working as a consultant for Bellmore, N.Y.-based Commercial Fire & Security, which he said was formed about a year ago.

And he's involved in the start up of a new company that he said has a group of investors behind it and is expected to launch by the end of October if all goes as planned. The company may be called Commercial Fire & Security—the new company may acquire the existing one—or take on a new name, he said. It will be based somewhere on Long Island, Wahrsager said.

Stay tuned—it looks like another round for Wayne Wahrsager.